


Shouldn't Be Forgotten

by Cookies_and_Chaos



Category: Cold Case
Genre: Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23682766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cookies_and_Chaos/pseuds/Cookies_and_Chaos
Summary: Lilly can pinpoint the exact moment her whole mindset - and purpose - changed.
Kudos: 2





	Shouldn't Be Forgotten

Looking back, Lilly doesn't recognise the woman who complained and questioned the point of reopening a case from 1976. Once she even laughed to herself at the fact that she ever thought 1976 was too old to solve. Or too old to matter.

She's glad Stillman made her stay on the case. Glad he listened to her complain about how Vera was passing off work onto her and then told her to stay with the case anyway. Even if it was meant to be Vera's, even if it had kept her off the live case, even if at the time she hadn't understood why it mattered so much.

The way the rest of them talk about her now — the jokes, the names and the rumours — no-one would ever have guess that it took her a moment to find her footing in the cold jobs. That it took time before it was her insisting that they were more important because they'd already waited too long.

She could remember the moment, the precise second, that drove home just how much it mattered. It was dragging that son-of-a-bitch, Todd Whitley, out of the car and into the rain and looking across and seeing them. Melanie and Evelyn, huddled together under an umbrella.

 _That_ split second. 

Ending Jill Shelby's life wasn't the only damage Todd had caused, even if it was the worst. He had torn up the lives of the two women and Lilly saw it all in that moment.

Lilly saw the ripples that her work caused and that no matter how old it was, there were still people it mattered to. And that was it.

That was the moment. 


End file.
